Where can you find the government regulation covering the minimum number of sea days a cadet needs to graduate?
Our school has been telling us there was a recent increase of the requirements.
Look in the CFRs in the section on State Maritime Academies. Not sure if that’s in there but it should point you in the right direction. I thought the requirement was 180? But now that I think about it they also told us that we needed to stand watches and do weekend shipwork to count towards our seatime and I’m not sure how much that counted for or how they even would do a legitimate job of keeping track of it.
As Mr. Cavo regularly points out the requirements within a program for license are usually different than for the standalone license. I am not sure if all 3rd mate programs are the same, but you should be able to get the course approval information outlining exact requirements from the school. I think the CG used to have these online but no longer do. I know for example you need AB or supervisory seatime for Maine’s VOT program but don’t for a 3rd mate; the system isn’t exactly intuitive
[QUOTE=sshragge;159113]Where can you find the government regulation covering the minimum number of sea days a cadet needs to graduate?
Our school has been telling us there was a recent increase of the requirements.[/QUOTE]
MARAD has miniumum requirements for academies in 46 CFR Part 310. The Coast Guard has additional requirements, and the amount and type of shipboard training (not “sea time”) varies for each academy and must be as is specified in each academy’s Coast Guard approved curriculum. You are not going to get very far arguing with the academy that you need less sea time than they are telling you. MARAD and the Coast Guard set minimums and academies may choose to exceed those minimums.
STCW requires a minimum of one year, and the Coast Guard allows training ship time to be counted at 1.5 to 1.